Actions Speak Louder Than Birds: Marc Hogan Can a corporate communications trainer become an Edinburgh festival comic in just 11 months – all to win a £1 bet. Join Marc Hogan somewhere on the learning curve to comedy greatness. (May contain birds.)

16 shows down and only six left!

What a rollercoaster ride. I’ve been flyering everyday for 4 to 6 hours a day. And it’s rained for the past 12 days. There is nothing harder than walking up to complete strangers who already have 30-50 flyers in their soggy hands and you have 1 minute to convince them that they should pay to see your show. I’ve been lucky though, I have my elevator pitch down! The key is to be very upbeat but self depreciating at the same time.

“Hi guys, I know you’ve been “flyered” to within an inch of your lives, you don’t have to have a flyer from me, but can I tell you about my show for 30 seconds instead?

“11 months ago I was bet a £1 that I couldn’t become a stand up comic and do an Edinburgh Festival Show…and in 2008 a pound was a lot of money!

“BBC Radio 4 heard a part of the show last week .. You look like big Radio 4 listeners! And they said I had some great observations…

“The show’s Dave Gorman-esque, there’s PowerPoint and graphs. If you like PowerPoint you’ll love the show, if you don’t like PowerPoint you’ll only quite like the show!

“There are 498 other shows on today when I’m on, if you can’t get into any of those shows, mine might be the show of choice!”

I’ve been told on several occasions I have the best / nicest pitch at the festival. Do you think I can put that on the poster?!

The pitch has been successful. I pretty much recognise 75% of the audience every night as being the people I’ve talked to earlier, which is really nice.

To be honest, the hardest part of doing the Edinburgh Fringe is the flyering. I’d thought the hardest part would be the show. But it’s definitely the flyering that’s most exhausting! Plus I’m one man against a virtual army of Pleasance and Underbelly flyerers.

I normally hand out 75 – 100 flyers a day to get 30- 40 people in the room, which is pretty good, but it’s hard work. There’s a judgment call to be made – do they look like they’ll enjoy it?? I want my audience to recommend me to others afterwards, word of mouth definitely sells up here!

I always select a group to flyer based on their age, sex and dress, if they’re young girls aged 18 will they even know what PowerPoint is?!

Anyway I have a day off today, so I’m going to catch up on some sleep! Just hope I don’t dream about flyers!!